Design & Build Quality

So, I have owned the iPad Pro for about 6 months now and I have to say it’s the most powerful tablet I have ever use and yes, it is still the one the most powerful you can buy today. Starting off with the design, the Macbook Pro shares the same design aesthetics as previous-generation iPad Pro. The 12.9 inch that I have here is now slightly bigger in screen real estate as compared to the 11-inch version and weighs around 640g. I find that the 11-inch version was so much easier to hold and store in compact bags but I went with the 12.9 inches for that extra screen real estate so I could try to use it as a laptop. And speaking of the laptop, iPad has always been known to outdo PC laptops and now it is not only just in the chip but also with the new Magic Keyboard. Moving on, the liquid retina display as colour accurate as you expect and now with lesser bezels along the sides and the top. It can produce up to 600 nits of brightness and supports the P3 wide color gamut as well as True Tone technology delivering the best true-to-life colors that are highly useful for photo editing and video color grading. It is also fully laminated with anti-reflective coating and fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating. Exclusive to the iPad Pro, there is a 120Hz refresh rate ProMotion technology so ​there will be no lag when used with high frame rate games or the 2nd Generation Apple Pencil. Next, the speakers function decently well too with balanced stereo output. They aren't the loudest but the sound is crisp and worth using for video calls or movie watching session. It never distorts at high volume levels and retains the depth and detail with sufficient soundstage and distinct left and right channels. The bass is deep, the mids are crisp and vocals come off with sparkling highs and never sounded shrill to the ear. There are also 5 studio-quality microphones that did well in picking up my voice during calls. In my time using it across Zoom, Skype, Discord and Facetime, I never had a single person feedbacked that they couldn’t hear me or I sounded muffled. However, unlike the crappy 720p webcam on the 16 Inch MacBook Pro, the iPad has a 7MP front-facing TrueDepth camera that supports Portrait mode, Portrait Lighting​, 1080p HD video recording at 30 fps or 60 fps​, f 2.2 aperture, Smart HDR and image stabilisation​. It also supports Face ID that works seamlessly and quick. On the back. there are now 2 camera, a 10MP Ultra Wide and a 12MP Wide, a flash as well as a LIDAR scanner which is the breakthrough new feature for iPads and the Apple ecosystem. Now, LIDAR is used to determine distance by measuring how long it takes light to reach an object and reflect back so it could help enhance the experience of Augmented Reality Apps like IKEA Place for furniture placements and the Measure app to take near accurate measurements of lengths and heights without a measuring tape. The wide 12MP camera features a ƒ/1.8 aperture while the ultra-wide 10MP camera features an ƒ/2.4 aperture and 125° field of view. You could also do a 2x optical zoom and a 5x digital zoom. The pictures captured were near the top quality of something you would expect from an iPhone and were mostly sharp and crisp with  Wide color capture, exposure control. noise reduction, smart HDR for photos, and auto image stabilization. You can also do 4K video recording at 24 fps, 30 fps or 60 fps with the Wide camera, and 60 fps for the Ultra-Wide camera​. There is also slow‑motion video support for 1080p at 120 fps or 240 fps for the Wide camera and 240 fps Ultra-Wide camera. There is also a Time-lapse video with stabilization​ as well as the option take 8MP still photos while recording 4K video.

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Performance

Moving on to performance, the iPad Pro has the A12Z Bionic chip with 64-bit architecture and an 8 core graphics processors with Neural Engine that fly through apps without a problem. So far, I have got it to a point where an app crashes but when gaming intensively, the chassis would heat up a bit. Doing some heavy RAW photo editing with the Apple Pencil, I didn't notice any lag too. When video editing, the footages loaded fine and there was enough power in the processor to drive the iPad. I also often use Augmented Reality apps and watch videos on Netflix or YouTube and the experience is as seamless as it gets. Of course, the experience couldn't have been completed without iPad OS 14 that helps me organize my files and plug into USB drives like what I did on a MacBook Pro. Now, with consistent updates, many bugs were fixed and the software is stable. There is also trackpad and keyboard support so adding the compatible Magic Keyboard makes the entire product feel complete. Coming from a MacBook perspective, most gestures work similarly too. Of course, the 2nd generation Apple Pencil with its 9ms low latency, drawing, and scribbling texts is efficient and much like using a real physical pen and paper. And many were excited about this on iPad OS, widgets. Like IOS, the widgets now compliment the experience though I didn't find it much different since I had been having it on Android for much of my time. If anything, iPad OS widgets are much more refined and cleaner in its user interface when compared to third-party Android ones. Onto storage, the iPad Pro doesn't have expandable storage but you have variants to choose from 128GB to 1TB.

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Connectivity & Portability

In terms of connectivity, the iPad Pro supports the latest Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi 6 and LTE. The battery life is claimed to be up to 10 hours of use but heavy workloads like gaming or streaming movies will drain it quicker than it should last. The USB-C port supports external display support monitors such as the Pro Display XDR or 4K monitors like the LG Ultrafine series of displays. There is no 3.5mm audio jack for audio use. The package also comes with an 18W charger to fast charge the battery.

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PROS​

• Modern Design

• A12Z Bionic Powerful Chip

• Ultra-wide Camera

• LIDAR Scanner for Augmented Reality

• Up to 1TB Storage

• P3 Wide Colour Gamut & True Tone

• Consistent Stable iPad OS Updates

• Magic Keyboard Support

• Apple Pencil (2nd Gen) Support

• USB-C Fast Charging

• Bluetooth 5.0

• Wi-Fi 6 & LTE

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CONS​​​

• No Expandable Storage​

• No 3.5mm headphone jack

• No Wireless Charging

 

The Bottom Line

All in all, the iPad Pro is a very specialized product that bridges the gap between phones and laptops. It has the sheer power of a standard laptop but requires add-on accessories for the laptop replacement dream to be able to work. It is the best tablet you can buy with iPad OS 14 as of yet but also the most expensive. Whether you are a content creator or a designer, the 12.9 Inch iPad Pro does not disappoint with its powerful CPU and GPU performance. The iPad Pro comes in both Silver and Space Grey colours.